March 13, 2013
Another new technology for nuclear reactors is reaching maturity: the molten-salt reactor. One important aspect of the design is it’s “walk-away safe”. That means it doesn’t require any power to remain safe; you can walk away from it and it will safely coast to a halt.
A company says it’s ready to commercialize the design. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, government is in the way:
Bringing the new reactor to market will be challenging. Although the basic idea of a molten-salt reactor has been demonstrated, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s certification process is set up around light-water reactors. The company will need the NRC to establish new regulations, especially since the commission must sign off on the idea of using less steel and concrete if the design’s safety features are to lead to real savings.
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Political, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
March 6, 2013
I have no problem with killing foreign terrorists using drones, but I’m profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of Homeland Security building a fleet of drones for domestic surveillance.
Remember when the Democrats were strongly against so-called domestic surveillance? Back then, we were talking about Americans who take phone calls from foreigners under surveillance. Now we’re talking about Americans just going about their business, and Democrats think it’s hunky-dory.
I think there ought to be a simple bright-line rule: DOD can have drones (but posse comitatus applies), DOJ and DHS cannot.
(Via Instapundit.)
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Military, Political, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
February 24, 2013
This will be cool, if it pans out:
Researchers have discovered a stunning new process that takes the energy from coal without burning it — and removes virtually all of the pollution. . .
Fan discovered a way to heat coal, using iron-oxide pellets for an oxygen source and containing the reaction in a small, heated chamber from which pollutants cannot escape. The only waste product is therefore water and coal ash — no greenhouse gases. As an added benefit, the metal from the iron-oxide can be recycled. . .
Fan’s process, called “coal-direct chemical looping,” has been proven in a small scale lab at OSU. The next step is to take it to a larger test facility in Alabama, and Fan believes the technology can be commercialized and used to power an energy plant within five to 10 years, if all goes smoothly. . .
The notion of carbon sequestration, in which CO2 would be pulled out of the air and stored, seems awfully hard. This sounds much more plausible. I hope it can be made cost effective.
POSTSCRIPT: Interestingly, the environmentalists — who ought to be delighted by a way to burn coal and generate only solid waste — seem to be against it. One might get the impression that they aren’t anti-pollution but anti-energy.
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Technological |
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Posted by K. Crary
February 19, 2013
Why does the left oppose nutrition for children?
Finally, after a 12-year delay caused by opponents of genetically modified foods, so-called “golden rice” with vitamin A will be grown in the Philippines. Over those 12 years, about 8 million children worldwide died from vitamin A deficiency. . .
Yet, despite the cost in human lives, anti-GM campaigners—from Greenpeace to Naomi Klein—have derided efforts to use golden rice to avoid vitamin A deficiency. In India, Vandana Shiva, an environmental activist and adviser to the government, called golden rice “a hoax” that is “creating hunger and malnutrition, not solving it.”
Glenn Reynolds adds:
For all the claims of “murder” thrown at the NRA over its policy arguments, the usual suspects are much quieter on this subject, where the connection between policy-advocacy and dead children is much clearer.
Indeed, for some perspective, consider this: 8 million children over 12 years works out to four Sandy Hook massacres every hour of every day for over a decade. Why isn’t the president surrounding himself with children and demanding golden rice?
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Political, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
February 9, 2013
Remember when officials use to cover up reports in order to hide dangers? That’s old school. Today, they cover-up reports showing that industries are safe:
Thanks to a leak from an anonymous insider, we learned Thursday that a report commissioned by the State of New York has given fracking a clean bill of health. The insider “did not think it should be kept secret” and released the document, which is now nearly one year old, to the New York Times, which reported:
The state’s Health Department found in an analysis it prepared early last year that the much-debated drilling technology known as hydrofracking could be conducted safely in New York.
The eight-page analysis is a summary of previous research by the state and others…[that] delves into the potential impact of fracking on water resources, on naturally occurring radiological material found in the ground, on air emissions and on “potential socioeconomic and quality-of-life impacts.”…[It] concludes that fracking can be done safely.
The analysis and other health assessments have been closely guarded by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and his administration as the governor weighs whether to approve fracking.
(Via Instapundit.)
Of course, covering up the report is a last resort. It’s preferable to falsify the tests, like the EPA is doing.
Why are they doing this? Possibly they believe that fracking is dangerous, despite the scientific consensus. (I believe that’s called being “anti-science”.) More likely, they’re just on the take, like Matt Damon and Al Gore.
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Political, Technological |
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Posted by K. Crary
January 30, 2013
As of this week, it is now illegal to unlock your smartphone. Okay, that’s bad in and of itself, but what’s worse is how it happened:
Did Congress quietly pass a bill prohibiting smartphone unlocking and send it to President Obama’s autopen? No. What happened was the Librarian of Congress was empowered by the execrable Digital Millennium Copyright Act to decide what modifications of our own electronic devices we are permitted to perform. In short, Congress delegated the power to make law to this functionary, and last October he exercised his power to prohibit smartphone unlocking.
It is supposed to be unconstitutional for the Congress to delegate its legislative power, but the courts have been permitting it for a long time, provided Congress provides an “intelligible principle” for the delegate to use. This is a very bad thing.
It’s bad because the bar for an “intelligible principle” is now so low as to be meaningful. But more importantly, it’s bad because the limits of Congress’s time ought to be a safeguard against tyranny, but it’s not.
It used to be that Congress was a part-time job, but the workload of the average Congressional office has doubled every five years since 1935 (according to Senator James Buckley). That means more and more laws to burden the American people.
One might think that the absolute limit of 168 hours per week would cap the amount of rules that our legislature could generate, but not if they can delegate rule-making power to others. With delegated power, the government’s ability to generate new rules is literally unlimited.
With a limit, the government would be compelled to use its power selectively, and only address high priorities. Without a limit, government issues rules for absolutely the most trivial matters. (Yes, even for spilled milk.)
There ought to be no rule binding the American people that is not passed by Congress and signed by the president (or passed over his veto). This wouldn’t ensure that Congress would exercise good judgement, but at least it would require them to set priorities, and we could hold them accountable for every rule on the books.
UPDATE: Corrected the Congressional workload doubling period.
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Legal, Political, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
January 19, 2013
A new bill to be introduced into Congress would take contracts out of the sphere of criminal law, and put them back into civil law, where they belong. Lawrence Lessig explains why that’s important.
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Legal, Political, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
November 2, 2012
Facebook has apologized for censoring a anti-Obama Facebook post. It’s good that they apologized, as far as it goes, but that’s not far. Without explaining how it happened, their apology rings hollow. In particular, I’d like to hear what role the Obama campaign had in the censorship; they have a history of calling for their opponents to be censored.
More generally, however, this incident (and others like it) show the weakness of proprietary social networks for free speech. When you own the medium (say, on your own blog) you can say what you want. When someone else owns it, they can shut you down. Even if they have a policy of allowing free speech, they can renege on that policy at the very moment you’re most interested in speaking, such as just before an election.
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Political, Technological |
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Posted by K. Crary
October 4, 2012
This is troubling:
Hackers linked to China’s government broke into one of the U.S. government’s most sensitive computer networks, breaching a system used by the White House Military Office for nuclear commands, according to defense and intelligence officials familiar with the incident.
We need to take this sort of thing seriously. We aren’t.
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Geopolitical, Military, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
August 14, 2012
Yikes! If you use Find my iPhone/iPad/Mac, all that Apple requires to authenticate your identity is your mailing address, and the last four digits of your credit card number. Those are the same digits that get displayed in plaintext everywhere since you can’t do anything with just them. With that easily-obtained information, an attacker can remotely wipe and brick all your Apple devices.
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
May 23, 2012
SpaceX is headed to the space station. If mankind has a future in space, it has to be with private enterprise.
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
May 7, 2012
The Senate wants every car to contain a “black box” that records its driving “event data”. Even if you don’t see this as sinister, it certainly seems unwise, as the law would essentially require the black box to be accessible to hackers.
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Political, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
March 5, 2012
You knew this day was coming:
Hacked DC School Board E-Voting Elects Bender President . . .
Within hours of examining the Ruby on Rails software build that constituted the voting system, Halderman’s team discovered a shell injection vulnerability, allowing them to alter an images directory on the compromised server as well as change outputs, and had guessed the admin login for the terminal server (hint: both the name and password were ADMIN).
From there, the team found vulnerabilities in the system controlling the server farm’s security camera’s, which allowed them to time attacks when nobody was around to notice the extra activity. Best of all, the team found a PDF containing authentication codes for every DC voter—you know, the ones voters use to prevent electoral fraud and prove their identities.
With this data, the team was able to change every ballot to a vote, not for any of the actual candidates, but a write-in for a fictional IT entity with Bender edging out Skynet in his political debut. Their control was so complete that even if new ballots were generated, they too would vote Bender.
Electronic voting is simply a bad idea.
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Political, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
February 24, 2012
I found this article on our growing dependence on GPS very troubling. An excerpt:
GPS jamming and spoofing can have serious effects on geolocation and communications technologies that rely on GPS for positioning and timing; maritime and aircraft GPS use, and even stock market trading, can be affected by jamming, researchers said at the conference. . .
“Our modern society is almost completely reliant on GPS,” [University of Texas researcher Todd] Humphreys told the conference. “It could be deadly.”
We society really shouldn’t have a single point of failure. We need to fix that. But in the meantime, we probably shouldn’t let the president’s LightSquared cronies break the system.
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
February 18, 2012
Just when my ire at Google was fading:
Google Inc. and other advertising companies have been bypassing the privacy settings of millions of people using Apple Inc.’s Web browser on their iPhones and computers—tracking the Web-browsing habits of people who intended for that kind of monitoring to be blocked.
The companies used special computer code that tricks Apple’s Safari Web-browsing software into letting them monitor many users. Safari, the most widely used browser on mobile devices, is designed to block such tracking by default.
Google disabled its code after being contacted by The Wall Street Journal.
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Technological |
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Posted by K. Crary
February 10, 2012
For those with an on-line subscription, the Economist has a great article about the XM25, the Army’s new grenade launcher that combines direct fire’s speed and precision with indirect fire’s ability to kill behind cover. Other countries are trying to build similar weapons, but ours is the only one that works.
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Military, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
February 8, 2012
ABC News reports:
Twitter has announced a new plan that will allow it to censor users’ tweets on a country-by-country basis if governments object to them. It says the policy is an attempt to keep doing business in countries, such as China, that do not welcome all expression.
On the company’s blog Twitter said it will now withhold offending content within the specific country that censors the language, while leaving it unaltered for the rest of the world. It will also post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed.
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Geopolitical, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
February 1, 2012
Forbes reports:
A special board formed to advise the federal government on the clash between Global Positioning System receivers and LightSquared’s proposed cellular/satellite communications network has concluded there are “no practical solutions or mitigations” that would allow the two to coexist on adjacent segments of the radio spectrum.
The National Space-Based Positioning Navigation and Timing Committee, in a letter released this afternoon, said it had reached the “unanimous conclusion” that the LightSquared network would “cause harmful interference to many GPS receivers” as well as a GPS-powered ground-alert system overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Based upon this testing an analysis, there appear to be no practical solutions or mitigations that would permit the LightSquared broadband service, as proposed, to operate in the next few months or years without significantly interfering with GPS. As a result, no additional testing is warranted at this time.”
Recall that LightSquared’s business strategy is based not on new technology, but on using its political connections to obtain a competitive advantage. That’s why they aren’t giving up despite all the technical findings against them: they think their politicians still might prevail.
(Previous post.)
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Political, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
January 20, 2012
Content creators have a legitimate interest in protecting their property. With the break-the-internet bills hopefully going to defeat, is there another, better way to do it?
ASIDE: Some have said that Hollywood and its ilk are liberal institutions and we should let them swing in the wind. I despise that bunch as much as anyone, and yes, I know that that is exactly how the Democratic party operates, but I don’t think we should stoop to that kind of Chicago-style politics. The right thing to do is the right thing to do, even if it benefits Hollywood.
Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Ron Wyden’s (D-OR) OPEN bill might be right way to do it. I can’t speak to all the details, but the basic concept seems workable: Rather than censor the Internet, OPEN would go after the finances that make piracy profitable.
What makes this attractive to me is that is puts the solution in the same space as the problem. The Internet is not broken; it is a tool for transmitting data and it works well. Content piracy is a financial problem and the solution should be situated in that space.
And if Hollywood isn’t satisfied with that, they can swing in the wind.
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Political, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
January 17, 2012
Facebook is sharing all its users’ private status updates and messages with Politico, an on-line publication focusing on politics. This is supposed to be okay, because all that material will be reviewed only by computers, not by people.
Personally, I would find that reassurance un-reassuring, even if I believed it, which I’m not sure I do. But it doesn’t really affect me, because I already recognize that nothing I put on Facebook is private.
(Via Althouse.)
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Technological |
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Posted by K. Crary
January 13, 2012
An interesting legal battle is ongoing over whether a person can be forced to reveal a computer password, or whether she is protected from doing so by the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination.
Under existing case law, the latter position seems stronger to me. The controlling case seems to be Doe v. United States. At issue in Doe was whether someone could be forced to sign a consent directive allowing foreign banks to disclose some information the government wanted. The court’s opinion wrote:
We do not disagree with the dissent that “[t]he expression of the contents of an individual’s mind” is testimonial communication for purposes of the Fifth Amendment. . . We simply disagree with the dissent’s conclusion that the execution of the consent directive at issue here forced petitioner to express the contents of his mind. In our view, such compulsion is more like “be[ing] forced to surrender a key to a strongbox containing incriminating documents,” than it is like “be[ing] compelled to reveal the combination to [petitioner's] wall safe.”
The analogy to a safe’s combination came from the dissent, which said:
A defendant can be compelled to produce material evidence that is incriminating. . .But can he be compelled to use his mind to assist the prosecution in convicting him of a crime? I think not. He may in some cases be forced to surrender a key to a strongbox containing incriminating documents, but I do not believe he can be compelled to reveal the combination to his wall safe — by word or deed.
So the question is whether a password is material evidence like a strongbox key, or the contents of a mind like a safe’s combination. I think it’s clearly the latter.
(Via Instapundit.)
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Legal, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
January 13, 2012
Cracked writes that video games are getting much better (warning: adult language):
Gamers tend to complain a lot about the state of modern gaming. . . But then I stopped and realized: We have all of these amazing, fantastic, borderline magical creations in our hands that, in many ways, dwarf all the wildest predictions of yesteryear — and we’ve got the [temerity] to stand around and [complain] that they’re taking too long to load. . .
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Recreational, Technological |
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Posted by K. Crary
January 4, 2012
NASA’s scheme (subscription required) for getting its next Mars rover to the surface sounds awfully complicated, but it sure will be cool if it works:
Curiosity’s size makes getting it safely onto the Martian surface tricky. Previous rovers have deployed parachutes to slow their descents, and have then crashed into the ground using airbags to cushion their impacts. Curiosity is too massive for that approach to work. Instead, NASA hopes to deposit it on Mars using a contraption it has dubbed a skycrane.
As with the other rovers, Curiosity’s mother ship will rely on heat shields and air-resistance, and then on a parachute, to slow its arrival. But at an altitude of 1.6km a specially designed descent stage bearing the rover will drop away from this vehicle. The descent stage has eight rocket motors on its corners. These will slow its fall to a relatively sedate 0.75 metres a second. When it is about 20 metres above the surface, the rover will be lowered from it on wires and deposited gently onto the Martian landscape. The cables will then be cut with explosives, the descent stage will fly off and crash land elsewhere, and Curiosity will begin its mission.
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
December 31, 2011
XKCD on passwords:

I think this is probably an artifact of the days when passwords were a maximum of eight characters. Old habits are hard to break.
(Via Instapundit.)
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
December 26, 2011
A startup company can locate nearly anyone’s mobile phone in North America, given just the phone number. Yikes.
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
October 30, 2011
OWS Exposed is a new web site that exposes the nature and misconduct of the Occupy Wall Street protests. It was immediately subjected to a denial of service attack. When it got back up, its servers were hacked, redirecting readers to 127.0.0.1. (I saw this myself.) It’s finally up and running now.
All of which tells us something about the supporters of Occupy Wall Street, without even going to the site.
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Political, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
October 18, 2011
Good things about iOS5: I like being able to use the volume button to take pictures.
Bad things about iOS5: It’s taken me literally hours to get my phone working about as well as before the upgrade.
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
October 7, 2011
Steve Jobs is being lauded as one the greatest inventors of our time. I don’t mean to diminish his achievements when I say that (as far as I know) Jobs didn’t invent any of the products he is famous for. I mean to stick up for the role of the entrepreneur.
Jobs was unquestionably one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our times. He didn’t design the iPod, iPhone, and so forth. He built a company that designed them, built them cost-effectively, got them into the hands of consumers, and in doing all that, changed our culture. That kind of talent is much rarer than the inventor.
I also want to stick up for the Apple innovation that has been largely forgotten by other Jobs eulogists. People remember the hardware, the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, but they forget the software. I want to remember the software; in particular, the OS X operating system.
Apple products now have the reputation for running smoothly. People forget that, before 2001, Macs were crap. The old Macintosh operating system was terrible. It was unstable and its file system was incompatible with every other file system in existence. (In contrast, Windows NT was relatively stable, and, starting in 1996, it had the same point-and-click interface that the Mac was known for.)
Under Steve Jobs (history buffs: I simplify slightly), Apple fixed the problem by scrapping Mac OS entirely. They built a new operating system with a brilliant design: real Unix underneath with a Macintosh veneer on top. The main thing about it is it actually works. And I say this as someone who doesn’t actually like it.
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General, Technological |
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Posted by K. Crary
September 26, 2011
Another witness in the LightSquared inquiry has come forward to reveal that the White House pressured him to modify his testimony. Also, George Soros is involved.
(Previous post.)
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Military, Political, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
September 21, 2011
Wow. I have no idea if OnStar was a respected brand, but if it was, it sure won’t be much longer:
Navigation-and-emergency-services company OnStar is notifying its six million account holders that it will keep a complete accounting of the speed and location of OnStar-equipped vehicles, even for drivers who discontinue monthly service.
OnStar began e-mailing customers Monday about its update to the privacy policy, which grants OnStar the right to sell that GPS-derived data in an anonymized format.
Adam Denison, a spokesman for the General Motors subsidiary, said OnStar does not currently sell customer data, but it reserves that right. He said both the new and old privacy policies allow OnStar to chronicle a vehicle’s every movement and its speed, though it’s not clear where that’s stated in the old policy.
“What’s changed [is that if] you want to cancel your OnStar service, we are going to maintain a two-way connection to your vehicle unless the customer says otherwise,” Denison said. . . Canceling customers must opt of of the continued surveillance monitoring program, according to the privacy policy. . .
Collecting location and speed data via GPS might also create a treasure trove of data that could be used in criminal and civil cases. One could also imagine an eager police chief acquiring the data to issue speeding tickets en masse.
Passing on the OnStar service isn’t enough; you don’t even want their hardware installed. Thankfully, that’s easy to arrange. Just don’t buy GM.
(Via Instapundit.)
UPDATE: OnStar reverses.
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
September 19, 2011
Despite everything they pull, I find it hard to hate Google. Why? Stuff like this. Shopping for flights will never be the same.
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
September 19, 2011
The White House pressured Gen. William Shelton (commander of the Air Force Space Command) to change his testimony to favor a company, LightSquared, that wants to build a wireless network that could interfere with GPS signals. LightSquared is owned by a major Democratic donor.
(Via the Corner.)
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Military, Political, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
September 3, 2011
A video shown on Chinese state television apparently reveals a cyberwar tool and shows it being used to attack a Falun Gong web site hosted in the United States. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese government has taken the video down (you can still find it on YouTube) and claims that the footage is fake.
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Military, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
September 2, 2011
In a change of policy, Google will no longer give the same discounts to churches that it gives to other non-profits.
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Political, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
August 17, 2011
If you use the Facebook app on an iPhone or other smart phone, it copied all your contact info and stored it on their servers. Read here for more, including an explanation of the incredibly (and no doubt deliberately) obscure process by which Facebook allows you to turn this off.
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
July 28, 2011
The Protect IP bill is a terrible idea and it needs to go away. It would allow the government to shut down web sites without any due process, and it would break the Internet for good measure. In short, this thing is a dream for tyrants. Kill it.
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Political, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
June 19, 2011
Apple has gone too far this time:
IPHONE users may soon be stopped from filming at concerts — as a result of new Apple technology. The leading computer company plans to build a system that will sense when people are trying to video live events — and turn off their cameras.
If this becomes a reality, I will be parting ways from Apple for good. Some things cannot be borne.
This isn’t just an issue for concerts and the like; this is an issue for any public event. Given that police in many places are already willing to break the law to keep people from recording their activities, can there be any doubt that they will be delighted to turn off cameras wherever they go. And that’s just the petty tyrants; then there are the real tyrants.
What really puzzles me is the mentality behind this. Have they forgotten who their customer is? They work for us, not for the concert promoters (and the dictators). It’s like the DVD player manufacturers who put in the “features” that prevent you from skipping to the main menu without watching ads. I paid for the player, not the studios! But this is worse than that. In that case, one could argue that the manufacturer was doing what was necessary for content to be available on DVD. That argument, implausible as it might be for DVDs, doesn’t wash at all for video recording. Are things going to stop happening in the world if Apple doesn’t prevent people from recording them?
(Via Instapundit.)
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
June 9, 2011
This could be a big deal, if it pans out:
A group of young MIT students has developed a new type of battery that runs on a rechargeable liquid fuel. The inventors call the fuel “Cambridge Crude,” and if the technology makes it to market, refueling an electric car could be as easy as pulling up to a pump. The batteries are powered by semi-solid flow cells, an innovative architecture that uses charged particles floating in a liquid electrolyte between two containers–one for storing energy and one for discharging energy. . .
The MIT News Office reports:
. . . Another potential advantage is that in vehicle applications, such a system would permit the possibility of simply “refueling” the battery by pumping out the liquid slurry and pumping in a fresh, fully charged replacement, or by swapping out the tanks like tires at a pit stop, while still preserving the option of simply recharging the existing material when time permits.
However, I would caution that this comes from the MIT press office, which has a history of over-hyping modest discoveries.
(Via Instapundit.)
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
June 7, 2011
This makes me mad:
Last November, we highlighted the story of New York City teenager Fei Lam, who had managed to sell $130,000 worth of white iPhone 4 parts in just a few months to customers eager to get their hands on a white iPhone 4 has Apple continued to delay the release of the official model. Lam claimed that he had developed a secondhand relationship with someone at Apple’s manufacturing partner Foxconn who had been supplying him with parts. At the time, the report noted that Lam had been contacted by a purported private investigator who claimed that Lam was trafficking in stolen goods, and Lam’s site disappeared soon after.
Apple yesterday finally filed a lawsuit against Lam and his parents, claiming infringement and dilution of its trademarks and engaging in deceptive practices through his conversion kit sales through his website at whiteiphone4now.com.
I should mention at the outset that it appears the suit has been settled, and we don’t know the terms of the settlement. But I don’t need to know the terms to be outraged by this. I don’t know if Apple has a case under the law — but they shouldn’t have a case.
This kid was selling aftermarket parts, that’s all. There’s nothing unusual about that. It seems to me that this is Apple using a groundless lawsuit to drive a tiny competitor out of business. And if the suit actually has a basis in law, that’s even worse.
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Legal, Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
May 27, 2011
Were you thinking that Google would apologize for locking people out of their Google accounts for criticizing Google’s customer service? Think again. Now they want to hold my money? Not bloody likely!
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
May 20, 2011
It’s bad enough that Ann Althouse’s blog was shut down completely for a full day, and damaged for days after that, due to completely unfounded spam accusations. It’s worse still that Althouse had to suffer abuse from Google employee/volunteer “nitecruzr” (seriously!). But people are losing access to their Google accounts for criticizing nitecruzr? Absolutely unacceptable.
I’ve moderated my distrust of Google over the past year, but this is a good reminder of why I distrusted them in the first place.
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
May 16, 2011
This is a big deal, if it pans out. (Via the Corner.)
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
May 15, 2011
The New York Times is accusing Facebook of hypocrisy, advocating the use of real names in social networking but making anonymous attacks against Google.
The criticism is fair enough, but this shouldn’t surprise us. Corporations, like governments, are run by fallen humans and you’re making a mistake if you expect too much of them.
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Technological |
Permalink
Posted by K. Crary
May 13, 2011
The Boston Herald reports:
President Obama could soon have the ability to personally text message every single cell-phone-toting American -— whether they like it or not — with “critical emergency alerts” under a new federal program that civil libertarians and political opponents say is a Big Brother-like intrusion posing a high risk of political abuse.
Federal officials in New York yesterday unveiled the three-tiered emergency alert system that would blast messages about Amber Alerts, impending weather disasters and terror threats to mobile devices.
Cell-phone users could opt out of most alerts if they want to, but not the texter-in-chief’s presidential pages.
“It’s like the state rep sending out mailings about how wonderful they are,” said Tad Kasperowicz of the Quincy Tea Party. “President Obama says,’Here come the high winds and the thunderstorms’ and it’s not really an emergency, but, hey, he gets his name out to every cell phone in the area. I can see that. Absolutely. There’s potential for abuse there.”
Potential? I’d say near-certainty. Politicians already exploit every avenue they can find to get their names in front of you, from Congress’s franking privileges to governors stamping their name on billboards at every entrance to the state. Of course they will abuse this, but they’ve never had such an invasive tool before.
(Via Instapundit.)
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Political, Technological |
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Posted by K. Crary
May 5, 2011
Sounds like I’m not a fan of TomTom:
GPS mapping company TomTom apologized after it admitted selling data collected from its customers to Dutch police, the Financial Times reported Friday. The Amsterdam-based company sold data to cops in The Netherlands that was then used to help police set speed traps for motorists.
To be clear, TomTom wasn’t selling personally identifiable information (at least, such is not alleged), but what they did do is clearly against the interests of their customers.
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Technological |
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Posted by K. Crary
May 5, 2011
The new iPhone software update removes the location tracking “feature”. To my knowledge, they still haven’t explained why it was there in the first place.
UPDATE (5/13): A reader points out the Apple press release. I’m still puzzled, though. The press release says:
The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location . . .
But this contradicts the Guardian’s story:
The file contains the latitude and longitude of the phone’s recorded coordinates along with a timestamp . . .
I wonder who’s right. (Also, Apple has a history of collecting location information.)
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Technological |
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Posted by K. Crary
April 22, 2011
The iPhone tracks all your movements using GPS, and keeps a record. Worse, that record is transfered to your computer when you sync your phone. Worse still, that record is persistent: when you migrate to a new phone, the record migrates with you.
Apple declined to explain what the hell they are doing.
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Technological |
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Posted by K. Crary
April 10, 2011
Iron Dome, Israel’s new rocket defense system, has proven itself in action for the first time:
The Iron Dome counter-rocket defense system intercepted a Grad-model Katyusha rocket fired from the Gaza Strip on Thursday, proving its capabilities in combat for the first time.
IDF sources said the rocket was detected shortly after it was launched in the direction of Ashkelon, south of which a battery was deployed on Monday. Two Tamir interceptors were fired at the Katyusha and the first intercepted it, a senior Israel Air Force officer said. . .
The first Iron Dome battery was deployed outside Beersheba late last month after Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired more than 100 rockets and mortar shells into Israel in less than a week.
(Via Right Turn.)
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Military, Technological |
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Posted by K. Crary
April 8, 2011
The Army is deploying GPS-guided mortar rounds in Afghanistan. Cool.
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Military, Technological |
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Posted by K. Crary
March 12, 2011
The European Union wants to improve your privacy, but there’s a little problem:
The commission said consumers should be informed “in a clear and transparent way” about how their data will be used. They should also have the right to fully delete digital information, like social networking profiles, and should be informed when their data has been used in unlawful ways, the commission added.
What is this “full delete” of which they speak?
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Political, Technological |
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Posted by K. Crary